The Kloppenburg campaign is filing open records requests.

[drm604]

http://elections.wispolitics.com/2011/04/kloppenburg-campaign-statement.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Statement from JoAnne Kloppenburg campaign manager Melissa Mulliken:

"Wisconsin voters as well as the Kloppenburg for Justice Campaign deserve a full explanation of how and why these 14,000 votes from an entire City were missed. To that end, we will be filing open records requests for all relevant documentation related to the reporting of election results in Waukesha County, as well as to the discovery and reporting of the errors announced by the County. We are confident that election officials in Waukesha County will fulfill these requests as quickly as possible so that both our campaign and the people of Wisconsin can fully understand what happened and why. Just as Assistant Attorney General Kloppenburg has run to restore confidence in the court, Wisconsin residents also deserve to have full confidence in election results."

[highplainsdem]

1. K&R!

[Liberal_in_LA]

2. k&r

[in_cog_ni_to]

3. GOOD! And get a shitload of lawyers involved. n/t

[Zambero]

41. Just as Warren Zevon once said...

"The shit has hit the fan!"

[rurallib]

4. hope someone keeps an eye on the bank account of the county clerk

Surely she will be well rewarded.

[JanetLovesObama]

6. Yup. The Kock sucking brothers rewarded her well !

[louslobbs]

16. If she starts to drive a Bentley Azure Convertible, and she seems dumb enough, that would be one

of the clue......this sucks.

[Control-Z]

55. Yep. I've been thinking the same thing

since I heard about her. You know she has been or will be compensated. How, though, is the question. Money? Favors? Promotion? She needs to be thoroughly investigated. Every facet of her life - past, present and future.

[snagglepuss]

5. Great to hear.

:kick:

[donquijoterocket]

78. indeed

Great to hear She seems like the sort who, if the pressure is unrelenting, will crack under the strain and this needs to be cut off at the root as soon as can be. The repcons are barely even attempting to conceal their motives and theft any more. They apparently believe that they're immunized by something Koch money or some magic cloak or other and I'd like to see them disabused of that notion soonest.As much as anything it's the naked arrogance that disturbs me.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

86. I hope she doesn't charter a small plane any time soon.

[skyounkin]

91. Too be fair

there has been NO prior history that they would be prosecuted if caught let alone any indication that they will received any type of punishment if they ARE caught.

So, really, who the hell can blame them?

[rufus dog]

7. Well written opening statement n/t

[socialist_n_TN]

8. I like the last phrase of the last sentence.........

It sounds like she wants a fight. Good.

[Greybnk48]

9. They need a forensic analysis on her computer too.

This is just not believable.

[Maraya1969]

23. Oh that is a good idea. Let the powers that be know about it!

[pacalo]

10. Good to hear they're not taking it at face value.

After all, Prosser won his last election with 99% & some think that we should just have faith that we've been told the truth. Besides, we have no evidence.

:grr:

[tblue37]

21. So did Saddam Hussein, and so do all the other despots

all over the world. But maybe, just maybe those numbers are a bit fishy, too.

[SnakeEyes]

31. Judge retention in the US is almost 100%

Only in recent years, like Iowa, have they become political like this. The guy was unopposed 10 years ago.

[Oceansaway]

11. Solidarity Forever !...nt

[louslobbs]

12. K&R

[PeaceNikki]

13. As they should. K&R. Again, WI Dems will expose any misconduct.

[mvd]

14. K&R!

:kick:

[proud patriot]

15. good to hear

[Dawson Leery]

17. K/R Something is seriously wrong here.

[deacon]

18. K + R n/t

[Maraya1969]

19. If she has no backup what are they going to check her results with?

It is just this file of thousands of votes with no record of how or why they got there?

[blogslut]

24. The request is for all relevant documents

My hope is that means any electronic correspondence regarding the election would be included.

[glinda]

26. I hope phone records as well as meetings that she had.

[coalition_unwilling]

39. As well as the logs of any conversations with a) Scott Walker, b)

Speaker Fitzgerald and\or c) any representative of the Koch brothers.

Come to think of it, I don't think an open records request will be sufficient. The U.S. Attorney needs to convene a grand jury and subpoena her ass to testify in front of it under penalty of perjury.

[drm604]

25. I don't know.

Is that all she has? How was voting done in that city? Are there paper ballots?

If there's nothing but a computer file, and she had sole custody of it for a day then, if there's any justice in the world, that entire city will vote again.

That's if there's any justice, but I doubt we'll see justice.

[Maraya1969]

28. And why is the only ONE PERSON in charge of a whole county or town or hamlet?

Aren't voting centers supposed to be stocked with people from both parties? And then people who watch the people from both parties?

This really smells. One person alone in a room with a computer that no one else can access who magically appears like the Wizard of Oz with exactly what Walker's buddies want.

I would like to know what the percentage totals are including these "votes". If they change it more than 1 or 2%, (from 50% to 50%) then there is serious reason to check this woman's pockets.

[SnakeEyes]

34. What is on her computer is the vote tally

Not the actual votes. Her computer wasn't responsible for keeping track of the votes as they happened or anything. WI uses paper ballots and require a paper trail. Basically she was responsible for entering the tallies from the machines that scan and count the ballots. If her story is true, that an entire cities numbers weren't entered, then this will be very easy to check.

[PeaceNikki]

37. The paper ballots. They will count them.

[eomer]

97. I hope you're right, but...

I was posting similar assurances about the 2004 Ohio recount before it got started, explaining what they would have to do under the law. But as it turned out they didn't follow the law.

Granted there is a lot of attention and momentum in Wisconsin now, but in Ohio it was the Presidency that was being decided so, one would think that a similar spotlight would have kept them relatively honest there too. It didn't.

So I hope Kloppenburg, et al, will be prepared for shenanigans. Don't assume election authorities will do something just because the law says they must.

[gkhouston]

46. The ballots and the sign-in sheets of voter's signatures at the precincts, at a

bare minimum, I would think.

[myrna minx]

20. K&R n/t

[fishwax]

22. k/r

:kick:

[PatrynXX]

27. Kinda need some MCSE/MCSA folks

Been awhile. so can you autosave in Access and if not which version didn't auto save??

Maybe we should be calling all geeks. I am one but Access isn't exactly the coolest thing to run in the world. Although I 'll take it over Excel

[Hestia]

29. Access can store the last couple of backups, especially if you date them, as I do.

[bhikkhu]

30. I'd like to see the FBI on it siezing everything

...I have to say, rather than a request that might or might not be answered adequately, with the clock ticking. Its high time there is some example set that we don't run elections like some third world petty dictatorship, pronouncing the winner from behind the closed door of some seedy office.

The whole thing stinks, and I'm already beginning to dread 2012, like all the well-justified dread of 2004. If another one goes by where they burn or delete all the evidence of a vote after a closed-door count-and-announce...

[coalition_unwilling]

35. I want to see a federal grand jury empanelled and her skeezy

ass hauled in front of it under penalty of perjury.

[DFW]

40. Agree fully--need the Feds in on this NOW

This stinks like Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004. This will go against us with smug Koch/Walker grinning
saying, "watcha gonna do about it?" The state of Wisconsin, if left alone, will what Walker wants it
to, i.e. accept the "newly found" ballots gleefully and swear Prosser back in.

Investigate, uncover, indict, convict, imprison--THAT'S what should be done about it.

[Bound by Honor]

32. She must not concede until Ms. Kathy Nickolaus admits guilt of fraud

and resigns in disgrace, turn herself in to the nearest prison so she can begin her life sentence immediately.

[nolabear]

33. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear.

[midnight]

36. This explanation is going to be interesting.

[BzaDem]

38. K & R. While I don't think there was fraud involved in the unreported city

sunshine is always a good thing, and everyone deserves to see just exactly what happened.

[PeaceNikki]

42. Exactly. The voters deserve an explanation. This clerk is responsible for reporting *MY* vote.

I want to know what happened.

[gkhouston]

44. If the totals for Waukesha county are accurate, the turnout would be something like 47%.

That's pretty high. Would you say that's a plausible number?

[PeaceNikki]

45. In this environment? Absofreakinglutely. The polls were busy, too.

Both in my community and all reports of friends and family here in the county.

We were 70% in November.

[catgirl]

50. They usually see about 30%

So this is REALLY high.

[PeaceNikki]

108. Where did you get that #?

Read Nate Silver's analysis - his #'s are accurate and verifiable:

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/vote-counting-error-in-wisconsin-points-to-incompetence-not-conspiracy/

[Botany]

43. I called the Kloppenburg HQ about 4 hours ago ....

.... and told them to lock down and go after all data from this race .....

#1 the story of "finding" a little less then 10% of the total vote of a county almost a day after
the close of voting doesn't pass the smell test.

#2 the # of votes counted in a county MUST EQUAL the # of signatures in the poll logs from election day, plus the #
of legitimate early votes , absentee ballots cast, and legit. provisional ballots cast.

[nc4bo]

47. I wonder what a forensic team might find on Missy's "personal" computer?

Reality setting in fast so please pardon me whilst I enjoy my own little personal fantasy.

[Bozita]

48. Can't get that with a FOIA. But an investigation is something altogether different.

I'm guessing we're gonna get requests for one.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SCfwBkF65oY/SQNM4rxrijI/AAAAAAAAF8g/IIQp9liG57s/s400/Dem+Monopoly+Get+Out+of+Jail+Free+Card.jpg

[Samantha]

52. I am not sure it is your own little personal fantasy

I think many of us here share your thoughts. Hey, you are not alone.

Sam

[inna]

49. i hope she fights. unlike Gore and Kerry in similar circumstances.

[eShirl]

61. I must remember November-December 2000 differently than you.

[elbram]

51. she mentioned that she forgot to click the save in the access database but....

In a database the records/tables update "live" as you enter the data, you do not hit save. I think that 'Save' is only needed for things like report format changes or database structure changes....

[karnac]

53. her computer is a dinosaur

my understanding is that it's dated 1995. which means she has to be running a very OLD OLD database. probably the first version of ACCESS invented. buggy as hell(actually, i think she is the buggy one) XP/2000? forget it! win98?(maybe but probably not). Either win95/win3.1 one of her office computers(not involved this fiasco) still runs DOS!

Yes she was chastised for not upgrading her equipment a while back.

so unless we have access and know how to use a version THAT old, we are just guessing we know. few of us do.

any of you compu-dinosaurs around?

[Ellipsis]

57. any of you compu-dinosaurs around?----- hahaha.

No but I go to OS 6.2, I think shortly after they introduced "The Chooser" oh exciting times... well it was for printers.

and I'm virgin here.

I know hardware.

[nolabels]

84. Another possible explanation.......

The guys who have found ripping off the peoples' vote such good business might have also hired slim-visioned cheap bean counters that thought giving her a newer laptop was not cost effective :-)

[drm604]

62. You're right.

There is no "save" in Access, or any relational database. The closest equivalent would be an uncommitted transaction. It's conceivable that that city was sitting in an uncommitted transaction that she later committed, but it seems unlikely.

It is possible, however, that the Access database may be used by an application that has a "save" button and doesn't actually apply the data to the database until that button is clicked. It seems like it would be designed so that you have to save any subtotals before a final total can be printed, but just because it seems like it should be designed that way doesn't mean that it is.

Anyone know if her computer can be requested under open records? Someone needs to look at the functionality of the software and see if this "save" claim holds any water. Hopefully it's written in VBA so the source code is available.

[Enthusiast]

54. Something smells.....nt

[JCMach1]

56. Have the court seize the computer equipment now!

[Ellipsis]

58. It all has to be secured immediately as a precaution.

[drm604]

63. Absolutely.

There needs to be an examination to see if her claim about not "saving" the data holds water. See my post #62.

[democrank]

59. K & R

[spicegal]

60. It does sound fishy doesn't it. Apparently, the county clerk

is a political position. Sounds like they still need a recount.

[TxVietVet]

64. Open up the Waukesha County clerk's actions

and one will see a pile of conservanazi maggots at work.

The evil bastards are trying to steal another election.

[xchrom]

65. recommend

[mod mom]

66. especially after this August report:

Here are more questions on the County Clerk that were raised in August:

Officials dispute reliability of Waukesha County clerk's election data system

By Laurel Walker of the Journal Sentinel
Aug. 13, 2010



Waukesha — Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus' decision to go it alone in how she collects and maintains election results has some county officials raising a red flag about the integrity of the system.

Nickolaus said she decided to take the election data collection and storage system off the county's computer network - and keep it on stand-alone personal computers accessible only in her office - for security reasons.

"What it gave me was good security of the elections from start to finish, without the ability of someone unauthorized to be involved," she said.

Nonetheless, Director of Administration Norman A. Cummings said because Nickolaus has kept them out of the loop, the county's information technology specialists have not been able to verify Nickolaus' claim that the system is secure from failure.

-snip
http://www.jsonline.com/news/waukesha/100595954.html

[sybylla]

67. Add to this the fact that the clerk worked for Prosser for 8 years

and the fact that she'd been at least knee-deep in illegal activities when she got caught in the caucus scandal of 2002 (for which she was given immunity), and one doubts even further that this omission of one city's votes was just an accident.

http://www.fightingbob.com/weblog.cfm?postID=3840
Garvey Blog at FightingBob.com

April 7, 2011
Holy cow!
Just learned that Kathy Nickolaus worked for David Prosser for eight years when Prosser ran the Republican Assembly. In other words, she was employed by Prosser, the candidate.

People in the office who observed the canvass said the additional votes from Brookfield never came up. C'mon!

Apparently Charlie Sykes, National Review and right-wing bloggers had the story hours before it was announced. She admits that she discovered it at noon--sat on it for 29 hours! One person involved said it stinks to high heaven. Indeed! Can't believe it? I can and wish I could say I can't. But I can.

[mistertrickster]

82. No $h!t. Wow. They don't even bother to make it look good anymore. nt

[rhett o rick]

68. Stand by! This is a preview for things to come. We are entering the Endgame.

CorpAmerica will pull out all stops to see how far they can push American citizens.

[Name removed]

69. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[wilt the stilt]

70. Why would she use her "peronal computer instead

of the servers everyone else uses. This is incredibly suspicious and basically unethical to use your own computer to count the election results.

Questions were immediately raised about the new announcement. As Schneider wrote, prior to the election, Nickolaus "was heavily criticized for her decision to keep the county results on an antiquated personal computer, rather than upgrade to a new data system being utilized statewide."

Added Schneider: "Nickolaus cited security concerns for keeping the data herself -- yet when she reported the data, it did not include the City of Brookfield, whose residents cast nearly 14,000 votes."

The Waukesha County Board also heavily criticized the clerk after she brushed aside their recommendations for improving election security. At one point during a hearing in January, board chairman Jim Dwyer grew exasperated with Nickolaus and said, "There really is nothing funny about this, Kathy. Don't sit there and grin when I'm explaining what this is about."

"Wisconsin deserves elections that are fair, clean and transparent," said Scot Ross, the executive director of the progressive advocacy group One Wisconsin Now. "There is a history of secrecy and partisanship surrounding the Waukesha County Clerk and there remain unanswered questions."

not to suspicious

[blm]

71. It shouldn't be just Waukesha...it should be a transparent audit of EVERY VOTE.

You know they would tamper everywhere they could.

[Harriety]

72. Bring in Clarence Darrow

[valerief]

73. I imagine Missy got an offer she couldn't refuse. "Here's your computer. Here's the script you read

to the press. Now serve Koch Country well. Or else."

RNC Golden Rule: WWTMD? (What would the Mob do?)

[GillesDeleuze]

74. cap times reports on history of problems:

History of controversy
Nickolaus has come under scrutiny before.
Last year, county officials raised objections to her practice of storing election data off the county's computer network, instead keeping it on computers in her office, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
The practice, which Nickolaus said was aimed at keeping the data more secure, prevented the county's information technology specialists from verifying the system was fail-safe, the county's director of administration said at the time. Auditors later recommended Nickolaus improve security and backup procedures.
In 2001, Nickolaus was granted immunity to testify about her role as a computer analyst for the Assembly Republican Caucus, then under investigation - along with the Senate Republican Caucus and the Democratic caucuses for both houses - for using state resources to secretly run campaigns.
Nickolaus, who worked for seven years as a data analyst and computer specialist for the Assembly Republican caucus, headed up an effort to develop a computer program that averaged the performance of Republicans in statewide races by ward.
During some of that time, Prosser served as Assembly Speaker, meaning he was essentially her boss.
Prosser, who was speaker of the Assembly in 1995 and 1996 and controlled the Republican caucus, was not part of the investigation.
Nickolaus resigned from her state job in 2002 shortly before launching her county clerk campaign.
"This raises so many questions," said Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha.
Barca said he was shocked Nickolaus waited 24 hours to tell people about the error.
A Democratic canvass observer said Nickolaus gave no indication anything was unusual when she arrived at about 9 a.m. Thursday morning, and she didn't find out about the error until the news conference that evening.
"There was no mention of Brookfield," volunteer canvass observer Nora Wilson said.

[bongbong]

75. Hopeful, but....

If you just know law from watching "Erin Brockovich", etc, you might think discovery is a magical process that absolutely requires the opposition to hand over everything they got. Some law movies make discovery look like a Magic Force Of Nature to uncover everything.

But in the real world, there are many ways around it, starting with just good old-fashioned lying - which as we all know, repigs have PhDs in.

[joeunderdog]

76. How long beofre Obama tells her to chill the F out?

Or before someone else puts the kibosh on her challenge?

Someone will be calling with a deal shortly. Guaranteed.

The very fact that a "mistake" like this could be possible means that the voting system is corrupt. The LAST thing the Repukes want is an investigation into the process that has led to so many victories for them.

[femrap]

77. K and R....nt

[mistertrickster]

79. Self delete--double post

[mistertrickster]

80. Explain me this: out of 14K more votes, how did Prosser pull ahead by 7K?

That would mean that Prosser got 10,500 votes and Klop only got 3,500.

Yeah, right.

[karnac]

85. It's Prosser's home

He's the local boy done "good".

Keep in mind this is just about the whitest(95%),low-union, and richest areas of wisconsin. Of course its going to be republican.

If excitement hadn't been generated about this election the turnout would have been lower.

[mistertrickster]

88. It's Prosser's home and conveniently the one that got left out of the official count. Odd, isn't it

[karnac]

89. of course it is odd.

ergo the stink.

But i take issue that it's supposed be the "official" count. Really it's only for the press and public so they know how things are going so they have some idea who won. particularly in a non-close election. the OFFICIAL tally isn't concluded til today or Monday.

ergo, stinks to high heaven, but no crime..

[mistertrickster]

93. Heh, no crime . . . YET. nt

[PeaceNikki]

106. lol, easily. This area is red. VERY VERY red.

[Snoutport]

81. IMPOUND HER COMPUTER!!!!

They need to have that computer in a safe place!

[SnakeEyes]

98. her computer is really irrelevant

other than if she intentionally made numbers up. But she didn't. The city of Brookfield posted their results on their website on election night which match the numbers being added to the count after canvassing and discovering that the city was all zeroes. http://tinyurl.com/3oq3vgr

[drm604]

103. Do you have the real URL for that PDF?

With a tinyurl we can't tell if it's really from the Brookfield website or not.

[SnakeEyes]

104. Sorry,

My browser loades pdfs files in the browser and the url appears at the top.

http://www.ci.brookfield.wi.us/DocumentView.aspx?DID=1542

[drm604]

105. Thanks

I should have thought to open it in IE.

[LaPera]

83. The usual slimy republican voting manipulation tactics - Republicans can't win so they STEAL it!

[Name removed]

87. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[lob1]

90. Something slithered out of the pit.

[drm604]

92. He'll enjoy his pizza.

[lob1]

95. That didn't take long at all. He didn't make it past post 1.

[Bushfire]

94. Kevin Kennedy said Waukesha Cnty uses touch screen AND optical scan machines

Friday's news conference with Kevin Kennedy of the Govt Accountability Board said Waukesha Cnty has both Touch Screen AND Optical Scan machines. Who knows what she did behind closed doors.

[drm604]

96. What we need is a breakdown of the votes

between touchscreen and optical.

[PeaceNikki]

107. We vote on paper, as required by law.

In the recount, all ballots will be examined by human eyeballs.

[Pryderi]

99. Remember when the RNC was running emails through a 3rd party?

So that they wouldn't be accessible?

[drm604]

100. Oh hell yeah.

I followed Michael Connell, GovTech Solutions and New Media Communications pretty closely. I posted a lot about it on my journal.

He ended up dying in a small plane crash.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/23/cbsnews_investigates/main4684431.shtml

Following Last Friday's fatal accident, CBS Affiliate WOIO reported that Connell, who had recently been subpoenaed to testify in relation to a lawsuit alleging vote rigging in the 2004 Ohio election, was warned at least twice about flying his plane because his plane might be sabotaged.

I don't like sounding tinfoil hat, but damn.

[Pryderi]

101. Don't forget gwb43.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_White_House_e-mail_controversy

The Bush White House e-mail controversy surfaced in 2007, during the controversy involving the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys. Congressional requests for administration documents while investigating the dismissals of the U.S. attorneys required the Bush administration to reveal that not all internal White House emails were available, because they were sent via a non-government domain hosted on an e-mail server not controlled by the federal government. Conducting governmental business in this manner is a possible violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978, and the Hatch Act.<1> Over 5 million e-mails may have been lost or deleted.<2><3> Greg Palast claims to have come up with 500 of the Karl Rove lost emails, leading to damaging allegations.<4> In 2009, it was announced that as many as 22 million emails may have been deleted.<5>

See also: Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy
The administration officials had been using a private Internet domain, called gwb43.com, owned by and hosted on an e-mail server run by the Republican National Committee,<6> for various communications of unknown content or purpose. The domain name is an acronym standing for "George W. Bush, 43rd" President of the United States. The server came public when it was discovered that J. Scott Jennings, the White House's deputy director of political affairs, was using a gwb43.com e-mail address to discuss the firing of the U.S. attorney for Arkansas.<7> Communications by federal employees were also found on georgewbush.com (registered to "Bush-Cheney '04, Inc."<8>) and rnchq.org (registered to "Republican National Committee"<9>), but, unlike these two servers, gwb43.com has no Web server connected to it — it is used only for e-mail.<[br />

[drm604]

102. Oh, I'm not forgetting it.

Michael Connell's company ran that server.